Wurman has four children. His father is noted architect and founder of the TED conferences, Richard Saul Wurman.

Wurman created the DOW mobile radars which observe tornadoes, tropical cyclones, wildfires,[1]winter storms, and other phenomena from close range. He invented meteorological bistatic radar multiple-Doppler networks, and the Rapid-Scan DOW, and holds about several patents related to bistatic and DOW technology.[2] He founded BINET Inc., manufacturer of Bistatic Networks, in 1995. He built the first DOW in 1995 from spare parts from NCAR and other facilities and as of March 2014 built eight DOW units.[3] The success of the DOWs led to a revolution of mobile radars in severe storms and other meteorological field research.

Regarding tornadoes, Wurman is particularly interested in researching tornadogenesis and amassing sufficient datasets of tornado structure and dynamics observations for tornado climatology study. He is also the discoverer of sub-kilometer hurricane boundary layer rolls, and wrote the pioneering papers on mapping tornado winds, multiple vortices, and other tornado-related phenomena. Wurman observed the top two fastest wind events and two contenders for the largest tornado circulations. A current major project of his is studying lake-effect snow in the OWLeS.

Wurman is a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Nifty Fifty, a collection of the most influential scientists and engineers in the United States that are dedicated to reinvigorating the interest of young people in science and engineering.[8]